Highlands Ridge An Off Grid Community

Some of the wealthiest people in America—in Silicon Valley, New York, and beyond—are getting ready for the crackup of civilization.

An armed guard stands at the entrance of the Survival Condo Project, a former missile silo north of Wichita, Kansas, that has been converted into luxury apartments for people worried about the crackup of civilization.Photograph by Dan Winters for The New Yorker

Steve Huffman, the thirty-three-year-old co-founder and C.E.O. of Reddit, which is valued at six hundred million dollars, was nearsighted until November, 2015, when he arranged to have laser eye surgery. He underwent the procedure not for the sake of convenience or appearance but, rather, for a reason he doesn’t usually talk much about: he hopes that it will improve his odds of surviving a disaster, whether natural or man-made. “If the world ends—and not even if the world ends, but if we have trouble—getting contacts or glasses is going to be a huge pain in the ass,” he told me recently. “Without them, I’m fucked.”

Huffman, who lives in San Francisco, has large blue eyes, thick, sandy hair, and an air of restless curiosity; at the University of Virginia, he was a competitive ballroom dancer, who hacked his roommate’s Web site as a prank. He is less focussed on a specific threat—a quake on the San Andreas, a pandemic, a dirty bomb—than he is on the aftermath, “the temporary collapse of our government and structures,” as he puts it. “I own a couple of motorcycles. I have a bunch of guns and ammo. Food. I figure that, with that, I can hole up in my house for some amount of time.”

Survivalism, the practice of preparing for a crackup of civilization, tends to evoke a certain picture: the woodsman in the tinfoil hat, the hysteric with the hoard of beans, the religious doomsayer. But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters, taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort.

Last spring, as the Presidential campaign exposed increasingly toxic divisions in America, Antonio García Martínez, a forty-year-old former Facebook product manager living in San Francisco, bought five wooded acres on an island in the Pacific Northwest and brought in generators, solar panels, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. “When society loses a healthy founding myth, it descends into chaos,” he told me. The author of “Chaos Monkeys,” an acerbic Silicon Valley memoir, García Martínez wanted a refuge that would be far from cities but not entirely isolated. “All these dudes think that one guy alone could somehow withstand the roving mob,” he said. “No, you’re going to need to form a local militia. You just need so many things to actually ride out the apocalypse.” Once he started telling peers in the Bay Area about his “little island project,” they came “out of the woodwork” to describe their own preparations, he said. “I think people who are particularly attuned to the levers by which society actually works understand that we are skating on really thin cultural ice right now.”

In private Facebook groups, wealthy survivalists swap tips on gas masks, bunkers, and locations safe from the effects of climate change. One member, the head of an investment firm, told me, “I keep a helicopter gassed up all the time, and I have an underground bunker with an air-filtration system.” He said that his preparations probably put him at the “extreme” end among his peers. But he added, “A lot of my friends do the guns and the motorcycles and the gold coins. That’s not too rare anymore.”

Tim Chang, a forty-four-year-old managing director at Mayfield Fund, a venture-capital firm, told me, “There’s a bunch of us in the Valley. We meet up and have these financial-hacking dinners and talk about backup plans people are doing. It runs the gamut from a lot of people stocking up on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, to figuring out how to get second passports if they need it, to having vacation homes in other countries that could be escape havens.” He said, “I’ll be candid: I’m stockpiling now on real estate to generate passive income but also to have havens to go to.” He and his wife, who is in technology, keep a set of bags packed for themselves and their four-year-old daughter. He told me, “I kind of have this terror scenario: ‘Oh, my God, if there is a civil war or a giant earthquake that cleaves off part of California, we want to be ready.’ ”

When Marvin Liao, a former Yahoo executive who is now a partner at 500 Startups, a venture-capital firm, considered his preparations, he decided that his caches of water and food were not enough. “What if someone comes and takes this?” he asked me. To protect his wife and daughter, he said, “I don’t have guns, but I have a lot of other weaponry. I took classes in archery.”

“I released a lot of emotion with my drumming, but I still need to have a tantrum.”

For some, it’s just “brogrammer” entertainment, a kind of real-world sci-fi, with gear; for others, like Huffman, it’s been a concern for years. “Ever since I saw the movie ‘Deep Impact,’ ” he said. The film, released in 1998, depicts a comet striking the Atlantic, and a race to escape the tsunami. “Everybody’s trying to get out, and they’re stuck in traffic. That scene happened to be filmed near my high school. Every time I drove through that stretch of road, I would think, I need to own a motorcycle because everybody else is screwed.”

Huffman has been a frequent attendee at Burning Man, the annual, clothing-optional festival in the Nevada desert, where artists mingle with moguls. He fell in love with one of its core principles, “radical self-reliance,” which he takes to mean “happy to help others, but not wanting to require others.” (Among survivalists, or “preppers,” as some call themselves, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, stands for “Foolishly Expecting Meaningful Aid.”) Huffman has calculated that, in the event of a disaster, he would seek out some form of community: “Being around other people is a good thing. I also have this somewhat egotistical view that I’m a pretty good leader. I will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave, when push comes to shove.”

Over the years, Huffman has become increasingly concerned about basic American political stability and the risk of large-scale unrest. He said, “Some sort of institutional collapse, then you just lose shipping—that sort of stuff.” (Prepper blogs call such a scenario W.R.O.L., “without rule of law.”) Huffman has come to believe that contemporary life rests on a fragile consensus. “I think, to some degree, we all collectively take it on faith that our country works, that our currency is valuable, the peaceful transfer of power—that all of these things that we hold dear work because we believe they work. While I do believe they’re quite resilient, and we’ve been through a lot, certainly we’re going to go through a lot more.”

In building Reddit, a community of thousands of discussion threads, into one of the most frequently visited sites in the world, Huffman has grown aware of the way that technology alters our relations with one another, for better and for worse. He has witnessed how social media can magnify public fear. “It’s easier for people to panic when they’re together,” he said, pointing out that “the Internet has made it easier for people to be together,” yet it also alerts people to emerging risks. Long before the financial crisis became front-page news, early signs appeared in user comments on Reddit. “People were starting to whisper about mortgages. They were worried about student debt. They were worried about debt in general. There was a lot of, ‘This is too good to be true. This doesn’t smell right.’ ” He added, “There’s probably some false positives in there as well, but, in general, I think we’re a pretty good gauge of public sentiment. When we’re talking about a faith-based collapse, you’re going to start to see the chips in the foundation on social media first.”

How did a preoccupation with the apocalypse come to flourish in Silicon Valley, a place known, to the point of cliché, for unstinting confidence in its ability to change the world for the better?

Those impulses are not as contradictory as they seem. Technology rewards the ability to imagine wildly different futures, Roy Bahat, the head of Bloomberg Beta, a San Francisco-based venture-capital firm, told me. “When you do that, it’s pretty common that you take things ad infinitum, and that leads you to utopias and dystopias,” he said. It can inspire radical optimism—such as the cryonics movement, which calls for freezing bodies at death in the hope that science will one day revive them—or bleak scenarios. Tim Chang, the venture capitalist who keeps his bags packed, told me, “My current state of mind is oscillating between optimism and sheer terror.”

In recent years, survivalism has been edging deeper into mainstream culture. In 2012, National Geographic Channel launched “Doomsday Preppers,” a reality show featuring a series of Americans bracing for what they called S.H.T.F. (when the “shit hits the fan”). The première drew more than four million viewers, and, by the end of the first season, it was the most popular show in the channel’s history. A survey commissioned by National Geographic found that forty per cent of Americans believed that stocking up on supplies or building a bomb shelter was a wiser investment than a 401(k). Online, the prepper discussions run from folksy (“A Mom’s Guide to Preparing for Civil Unrest”) to grim (“How to Eat a Pine Tree to Survive”).

For some people, preparedness is about the big things: the well-stocked retreat home, buying yet another firearm, or getting a super-fancy generator. While these things can certainly be classified as preparedness endeavors, it isn’t the expensive and dramatic gestures that make us truly prepared people.

The way prepared people spend their time before an emergency is the real key to survival, and this is something that no amount of money can buy.

It’s the small daily habits that become an innate part of our everyday lives – habits that may not even be noticeable to someone outside the lifestyle.

Real preppers, the ones you should look to for advice if you happen to be new to preparedness, are the ones who quietly conduct their daily lives with an eye towards readiness. Not only are these the qualities you should strive for yourself, but they are also the qualities that can help you to determine whether someone is the “real deal” or an armchair survivalist.

#1: Prepared people think beyond “Plan A”

Anytime one disaster occurs, several others are bound to follow closely in their wake. One of the most dramatic examples of this was the tsunami that followed closely on the heels of the 2011 earthquake in Japan, resulting in one of the most horrific nuclear disasters in the history of the world.

But it doesn’t have to be on such an epic scale to qualify. No matter how excellent your survival plan is, if things go awry you must immediately be able to accept that monkey wrench and adapt your plan to it.

#2: Prepared people react calmly.

Panic kills. When something terrifying happens, if your reaction is to freeze or to run around like a chicken with your head cut off, you’re probably going to die unless Lady Luck steps in and saves you through no action of your own.

Panic can show itself in two ways. For example, during the King Fire, a massive forest fire that burned over 97,000 acres of California wilderness, we witnessed some very visible panic in some of our neighbors.

When we got the first evacuation alert (a notice that evacuation was highly likely within the next 24 hours), a woman who lived down the street was wailing and sobbing as her husband tried to pack up their vehicle. She was rendered absolutely useless by fear.

Alternatively, panic can manifest in the inability to act. In psychology circles, completely freezing is called “tonic immobility”. This is a biological impulse related to an overload of stimuli due to extreme stress. It can also show itself in as an irrational sense of calmness as the brain denies the reality that a horrible event is truly happening. In her book, The Unthinkable, Amanda Ripley wrote about the cognitive dissonance experienced by some in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

The story that stands out in my mind the most was the one about the people in the World Trade Center on September 11. They described the last time they saw some of their coworkers. There were many people who simply could not accept the fact that a plane had crashed into the building and that they must immediately evacuate. They gathered their belongs, tidied their desks, finished reports. They didn’t feel the same sense of urgency that those who survived did, because the situation was so horrible that they just couldn’t accept it. Their inability to accept the scope of the danger caused many of them to perish in a tragic incident that other people, who acted immediately, survived. (source)

You can enhance this ability to accept events and act calmly by thinking through possibilities ahead of time and considering courses of action while your pounding heart is not pumping vast amounts of adrenaline through your veins.

#3: Prepared people are critical thinkers.

Thinking critically is an important skill. Those who passively accept everything they see on the TV news are missing the concept of propaganda. Six enormous corporations control just about everything seen on mainstream television. Through this control, they can promote their own desired agendas by putting their own spins on events. They can influence how the American people think about guns, about our nation’s enemies, and about the food we eat. It’s vital to think about how these corporations earn money – through advertising dollars. Will they really show the truth if it negatively affects their advertisers?

The same is true of nearly any situation. The “truth” presented is most often the “truth” that benefits the presenter.

Prepared people are able to assess the information provided to them and distinguish the difference between facts and manipulations. They keep up with current events, but strive to separate the reality of the event from the opinions of the broadcasters.

#4: Prepared people carry a kit with them everywhere, every day.

If you don’t have a basic everyday carry kit, you can’t consider yourself to be a prepared person. I personally carry the basics for fire, water, and safety in my purse at all times. I also have an extensive emergency kit stashed away in my vehicle for times that I am far from home.

Prepared people are creative problem solvers who enjoy challenges to their skills.

#6: Prepared people live a skills-based lifestyle.

It isn’t enough to just plan. You have to have the ability to execute that plan. And the only way to know that you have that ability is to make the skills a part of your day to day life. Here’s an example. I recently moved to a farm to begin homesteading and discovered (the hard way) that my successful backyard gardens did not make me an instant self-sufficient homestead farmer. How many preppers do you know that stock seeds instead of food or say that they’re just going to “live off the land” when it all hits the fan? While it’s entirely possible to do this successfully, it takes a lot of practice and a substantial amount of time building a foundation to make this a viable plan.

But it isn’t just homesteading that people mistakenly assume will be an easy survival plan. If it’s part of your plan, you must work at it now. You have to practice skills like marksmanship – we put some ammo downrange every single weekend without fail. You have to practice skills like hunting if your plan is to provide meat for your family this way. You have to practice preserving the food that you raise or acquire if you intend to eat in the winter.

Prepared people practice what they plan. They focus on productive hobbies and live a skills-based lifestyle that is closely related to their SHTF plan.

#7: Prepared people are physically active.

Prepared people generally work some kind of fitness into their day-to-day lives. They work a physical job, they walk or jog, they go to the gym, and they don’t sit at a desk for 8 hours, only to relocate to a couch until bedtime.

I occasionally teach introductory preparedness classes in my area. Every single time, someone from the city tells me their plan is to hike to Lake Tahoe because of all of the water there.

It’s a pain in the neck to drive to Lake Tahoe, let alone walk there. Don’t let the 30-40 mile distance fool you. When hauling a 60 pound pack through the mountains, that 30 miles might as well be 300 miles, especially if this is not the type of thing you normally do. If your last walk was through the potato chip aisle at the grocery store, bugging out on foot through the mountains is probably not going to be a viable plan.

Moving more in your day to day life is a great way to gently break your body into a more active lifestyle. Just walking daily can make a world of difference to your fitness level.

#8: Prepared people require purchases to be multi-purpose.

Most of us do not have unlimited storage space, and we have a lot of things we want to store. For this reason, we tend to pass on the “one-hit-wonders” unless they are truly remarkable. We have supplies that will serve more than one purpose. Our pantry basics can be used to make cleaning supplies. We stock large amounts of items like vinegar, duct tape, and baking soda. Our tools are versatile instead of narrowly specialized.

Prepared people seek out high quality products that multitask and limit purchases that only serve on purpose.

#9: Prepared people are not wasteful.

How far can you stretch your leftovers? What kinds of things do you reuse that others simply throw away? The ability to make one’s supplies last for as long as possible isn’t something that just appears overnight.If your friends think you’re a “cheapskate” you’ve probably got this habit nailed down. (Check here to see if any of these signs apply to you.)

Prepared people live frugal, non-wasteful lives now, and they’ll be far better suited to make things last later. One day, a situation could arise in which the supplies we have are very limited.

#10: Prepared people practice situational awareness.

Over the past few years, we’ve heart about all sorts of incidents of mass violence, both in the US and abroad. Practicing situational awareness at all times is a habit that helps you to instinctively assess the baseline of normal for your location, and in turn, notice early on if something just isn’t right. This helps you to react more quickly if a threat occurs, and often those brief seconds can be essential.

Prepared people spend time participating in activities that enhance their situational awareness. My kids and I used to play a “game” of identifying exits when we went to new places. You can channel author Rudyard Kippling and teach your kids “Kim’s Game” to increase their observational skills. (Learn more about it here.)

What are some other habits for preppers?

Preparedness is not some finite goal that is achieved when you have amassed a certain amount of beans and bullets. It’s something that is an ingrained part of your personality. Our habits become such a natural part of us that we don’t have to think about them when we find ourselves in the midst of an emergency. The way you live your day-to-day life is the real key to survival, and this is something that no amount of money can buy.

How are you doing, Ready Nutrition Readers? This article is the final segment of a three-part series dealing with obtaining water in a preparedness and survival stance. We will focus today on home and small group needs for water, incorporating knowledge from the prior two segments to complete the picture. The needs of each home will differ considerably due to varying needs of water consumption. A two-story home with five children, two parents, and an elderly grandparent with a long-term illness, for example, will need a different amount of water than two brothers in their thirties living in a small cottage.

The basics we’ll cover can be tailor-made to fit the situation that governs your needs. Conservatively speaking, each person needs between 1-2 gallons per day for intake; this does not include use of showers, toilet, sink, and laundry. As we covered in part 2 of this series on water, during a survival/grid down scenario, there are a number of diseases that must be taken into consideration. There are filtration and purification methods as detailed in part 1 as well as large-scale considerations. First things first: let’s discuss obtaining water.

I have included a diagram that shows how to make a water point for the family. Prior to doing any of this, consult with your lawyer or your local and state guidelines concerning laws, statutes, and regulations in the state you live; they may prohibit your obtaining and storing water (surface, rain, or other). Your best bet for catchment is a simple system using the roof. Tar or asphalt roofs are “no-go’s” because of the chemicals that will contaminate your water supply. Slate or tile can be used, and this author believes steel (coated or non-flake-painted) roofs are the way to go.

Your collection barrels can be purchased for $35 – $50 in your local feed or hardware store. Be sure to not pick up a translucent barrel, as your water supply will develop algae; they should be dark in color. I have found some decent 50-gallon barrels that are brown with black lids and a ring-type screw-on seal complete with rubber flange. You want to find a color that camouflages the water barrel or paint it with plastic-bonding paint to make it blend in your environment. If you have a straight roof, you can do at least two collection points. Four (4) 55-gal barrels per point is optimal. Then you’re looking at 440 gallons total when they’re filled.

For those who can afford it and those who don’t have a 6’ (yes, six foot) frost line, there are 225-gallon holding tanks that can be set in-ground, or you can set in a brick and concrete underground cistern. There are plenty of plans and sites available on the web, and (depending on your family’s needs) you may wish to consider them as options. There are other variables that you must consider as well, and some are as follows:

Time of the year/season: Obviously you’re not going to collect much rainwater in the wintertime. The water point needs to be shut down during the winter to prevent your barrels from freezing, splitting, and/or becoming a giant, fixed, “cool-pack” that weighs around 418 lbs. (a gallon of water is 7.6 lbs). It is best to gather snow and melt it (5 gal snow = 1 gallon water), or pour it into non-splitting containers for big blocks of ice you can melt down.

Neighbors: How are things on “Sesame Street?” Are the neighbors friendly, or are they just “friends in need” when the time comes, or even worse? Would they complain about your water point(s) to your friendly neighborhood housing authority? Or will they want to take your supply when they have no water? Best advice here is some type of security system around your water point. You may even wish to enclose your barrels in some type of shed or storage building. Camouflage, ad infinitum, in all things you do; blend in and do not stick out.

Budget: The system I diagrammed is low budget. You can do it (total) for under $300, if you’re sharp and cut corners. You need to spec it out on paper with a good working diagram of your own as applicable to your home.

OK, so we have a good method of collecting water and some suggestions to store it, but what about those “creepy crawlies” from Part 2? Disease during a disaster is going to run rampant. You need to be prepared, and here are some methods to do it.

Microscope: A good microscope is going to be worth its weight in gold. You need one with a mirror-lighting system to augment the stage illuminator, to enable you to use the sun if it’s “grid down” and/or a generator is inconvenient or too noisy. To invest in a decent one, ask your doctor, veterinarian, or a local schoolteacher or professor of biology to make a recommendation. A 100x – 500x should work just fine. You’ll also need a gram-staining kit, slides, test tubes, and a good lab manual with plenty of color photos to identify specimens on a slide. With this you’ll be able to do your own homework and find out what is making your whole family ill. Remember the microscope is not powerful enough to see most viruses; however, you’ll be able to see bacteria and the one-celled buggers of the protista family (ex: Giardia lamblia).

Disinfection Station: This would be wise for when family members fall ill. Station it between the house and the water point. Nobody needs to visit the water point if: 1. They have not been disinfected, or 2. Should they fall ill. There is an awesome product called Medline Micro-kill Bleach Germicidal Bleach Wipes that works on the following: Viruses – Hep B, Hep C, HIV. Bacteria – Staphylococcus aureus MRSA, S. aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Salmonella enterica. The list is not exhaustive. You must wear gloves when using it, and it’s not cheap. It even kills Clostridium difficile spores. For further information, call 1-800-MEDLINE.

Stock up on hand sanitizer, Hibiclens (Chlorhexidine Gluconate solution 4.0%), and isopropyl alcohol (best is 91% for a 32-oz bottle at Wal-Mart) for hand cleansing. The disinfection station can also be used when going into the house and visiting anyone who is sick in the family (you should disinfect both coming and going).

Sick Room: For family members who have taken ill, you may want to provide a room that keeps them isolated from the rest of the family while they are recovering. All waste and disposable supplies needed to nurse them needs to be rigorously controlled and burned in a burn pit or barrel. This recovery room is best placed on the furthest part of the house. An excellent control measure is the portable potties with sturdy frame, bucket, seat, and lid that you can find in a medical supply store. Brand new they’re around $150, however, if you shop around you can find them now and again in your local thrift stores or flea markets. The buckets take a 4-gal bag. Glove up, tie the bag off, and take it to the burn location.

Now let us discuss a few water conservation measures. We already mentioned the portable potty, and it can be used in times besides sickness to conserve valuable water. In my humble opinion, a family should have two of them. The burn pit/barrel should be situated a minimum of 100 feet away from the house for safety and hygiene purposes. With a grid down event, water will be too scarce to lose in the normal cycle of the flushing toilets. For interior water storage, you will have to decide what you can and cannot do. I recommend at least 10 gallons per person and 5 gallons per domestic animal for starters.

Regarding the rainwater catchment system, any water consumed directly should still be boiled or filtered. This prevents you from having any contaminant such as bird droppings from giving you a bad day. I strongly recommend the Big Berkey water filtration system by New Millenium Concepts, Ltd. It is akin to an urn with 2 filters that handle 2 gallons at a time for a filter life of approximately 6,000 gallons for heavy metals, viruses, bacteria, chemicals, and toxins. You can reach them at 1-888-803-4438 or inquire at Berkeylight@directive21.com.

Your laundry, bathing, and dishwater in a grid-down event can be re-filtered and boiled to use once again as utility (not drinking) water. The CDC has some good information on such usage on their website; you may also wish to check with your local water board/municipality for further information particular to the water of your area. Once again, this article does not intend nor make claim to treat, diagnose, prescribe, or assess any of the information presented. The materials presented are for informational purposes only. Consult with your licensed, certified family physician, as well as your lawyer and/or your local and state laws or guidelines prior to taking any action using the information in this article. Hope you enjoyed the series and I’m lifting my water bottle and toasting to your health, Ready Nutrition Readers! Have a great day!

Jeremiah Johnson

Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne). Mr. Johnson was a Special Forces Medic, EMT and ACLS-certified, with comprehensive training in wilderness survival, rescue, and patient-extraction. He is a Certified Master Herbalist and a graduate of the Global College of Natural Medicine of Santa Ana, CA. A graduate of the U.S. Army’s survival course of SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape), Mr. Johnson also successfully completed the Montana Master Food Preserver Course for home-canning, smoking, and dehydrating foods.

Mr. Johnson dries and tinctures a wide variety of medicinal herbs taken by wild crafting and cultivation, in addition to preserving and canning his own food. An expert in land navigation, survival, mountaineering, and parachuting as trained by the United States Army, Mr. Johnson is an ardent advocate for preparedness, self-sufficiency, and long-term disaster sustainability for families. He and his wife survived Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Cross-trained as a Special Forces Engineer, he is an expert in supply, logistics, transport, and long-term storage of perishable materials, having incorporated many of these techniques plus some unique innovations in his own homestead.

Mr. Johnson brings practical, tested experience firmly rooted in formal education to his writings and to our team. He and his wife live in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with their three cats.

Welcome back to this series on the 5 things you need to go off grid now, where I have been discussing the scenario of a collapse or long-term disruption of “the grid”. The term ‘the grid’, can mean different things to different people, but for the sake of this series, the grid I am referring to would be many of the systems and services we have come to rely on in our western culture. This would include things like electricity, water, sanitation, natural gas, emergency services, the internet and communications.

Some people think of the grid as the information collected about our lives through various electronic transactions. “Jason Bourne has gone off the grid”, meaning his whereabouts are not known because he isn’t using credit cards to pay for anything and they can’t track his cell phone. When Jason is spending that cash he had so brilliantly hidden in the safe deposit box, the CIA spooks can’t find him using their usual systems of detection. That is certainly one aspect of the grid, but when we talk of a lifestyle of living off the grid, we don’t normally associate that with running from a rogue department in a shadowy government agency that is hell-bent on killing us.

Going off the grid has become synonymous with living more simply and in many ways reducing or eliminating our dependence on systems like electricity. In an effort to go off the grid we may purchase solar panels as an example, or drill a well in our yard to provide fresh water instead of relying on city or municipal sources. It is an achievable goal for many, but not all of us. This series is focusing on that goal from a different angle and that is if you find yourself forced to go off the grid due to a natural disaster or some catastrophic event that renders these systems temporarily or permanently out of commission. You don’t leave the grid, the grid leaves you.

Human beings are incredibly resilient and resourceful creatures when we put our minds to it, but we weren’t really built to live outside in the elements. Humans need shelter from temperature extremes as well as exposure to the elements so if the grid does go down; shelter needs to be high on your list of priorities.

Unless you are a gypsy, homeless or happen to be backpacking your way across Europe, most of us do have a place to live already. You may be asking why this is one of the 5 things you need to go off the grid. It’s true that there should be no shortage of shelter, at least in the form of a shell, for pretty much anyone in the world. What we may not have though are the heating and cooling systems we have today. We also may be forced to leave our homes and make our way to another location. You may be stranded away from your home and need to get back to it.

How many people would want to live in Arizona without air conditioning? I have been there and I know a lot of our readers live there now, but can you imagine summer without being able to get out of the blistering 100 degree temperatures that last 4 months out of the year on average? What about growing crops with minimal rainfall? On the flip side, would places like Maine, Minnesota or North Dakota, be a lot of fun in the winter without heat? Sure we can burn wood, but that is not a resource all people have access to right now. Even if everyone had their own wood burning stove, how many cities have forests right outside your door for fresh firewood? Can you imagine how quickly Central Park in New York would be decimated if people were looking for a source of wood to heat their homes? It would probably look a lot like that scene in Lord of the Rings…

Could you build your own shelter if you had to?

Electricity is responsible for the majority of our temperature regulation in our homes and businesses. When the power goes away, life will be a lot less pleasant. For some in the extremes, it can be deadly.

But shelter doesn’t only need to be considered from the standpoint of a roof over your head, although that is pretty important. Your clothes are a more important aspect of shelter I believe because with the right clothing, the outside weather is less of a danger. Do you have warm clothes in layers that will keep you alive when the temperature drops into single digits? By the same token, do you have lighter weight clothing that will protect you from the sun in the summer? What about hats to keep rain and sun off of your head?

My daughter, much to my chagrin will frequently go to leave the house in clothes that while they are perfectly fine for inside, would not protect her from the elements. Like a broken record, I say “It’s freezing outside, better grab your coat”. To which she replies: “but I’m going to be inside”. It is at this point in the conversation that I repeat my mantra which everyone in my house has heard before, “You need to dress like you would if you have to walk home”. If something were to happen, would you have the proper clothing to make it back home or would you freeze to death? What if today was the last day you could ever buy any clothes from the store? Would you have appropriate clothes for spending a lot of time outside, possibly living in the elements for short periods? Would you have work clothes if you were forced to begin your garden and work outside of the home more than inside?

Protection from intruders

Reinforced doors can greatly improve your chances of survival in a home-invasion scenario.

Shelter from the elements is one aspect, but what about protection from the human element? Yes, we can lock our doors, but in a grid-down crisis I anticipate desperate people doing desperate things. As part of my strategy for if the grid goes down, I also consider security from the standpoint of reinforcing our home as much as possible to prevent easy access. Would we be able to hold off a determined band for long? Probably not, but we can slow them down.

Strengthening doors is a great step you can take to make your homes more secure, but that is only one access point. Windows are more vulnerable and if someone has a hard time getting in the front door, they can decide they want to bash out your windows. Protective window films offer additional protection and can be easily applied by anyone to make your existing windows act like safety glass. Instead of shattering, the film holds everything together and could buy you some time.

Similar to hurricane preparations, having extra lumber in the form of plywood would make sense so you could board up windows if things really got out of hand. Sandbags are another worst case item that I think would be very useful, right up there with barbed wire and a home defense plan with your neighbors. Assuming of course that is isn’t your neighbors you have to worry about.

Next week we will be discussing the last item to consider for going off grid. I hope you’ll come back and please let me know your thoughts on shelter options that preppers should consider below.